


We All Fall (But Some Rise Back Up)

by redcandle17



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-18 18:51:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9398384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redcandle17/pseuds/redcandle17
Summary: Albus Dumbledore sees Newt Scamander making the same mistake he once made.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tillunwish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tillunwish/gifts).



He didn’t have to use Legilimency to know that the boy was innocent. It was plainly obvious, though Professor Phineas Nigellus Black refused to see it. 

“Headmaster,” Albus tried again, “Scamander meant no harm.”

“Enough, Professor Dumbledore,” Black said irritably. “He’s not even one of your Gryffindors. You don’t see his head of house in here pleading his case, and for good reason: the boy confessed.”

It was a matter of principle, fighting the injustice of expelling an innocent boy. But there was more to it if Albus was honest with himself, and he’d learned the hard way the importance of self-honesty. He saw himself and Gellert in the Scamander boy and the Lestrange girl. He remembered very well the feeling of believing you’d finally met someone who truly understood you, and was just like you, and the seeming strength of knowing that together you two could accomplish anything. How precious that feeling was. 

Albus did not tell the headmaster that Newt Scamander was taking the blame to spare his friend Leta Lestrange punishment. He wouldn’t disrespect the boy’s sacrifice by revealing his secret. And, anyway, he suspected Black would refuse to believe it, or at least pretend he didn’t. The Lestrange family were an old and wealthy pureblood lineage with certain prejudices, much like Black’s own family.

“The boy is a boy; at his age the severity of the consequences are lost on him. I will write to the board of governors, headmaster.”

Professor Black scowled. “Write all the letters you want, Albus, but you’ll only waste ink and tire your owl needlessly.”

Albus sought out the boy and found him in the kitchen. There was a large cup of pumpkin juice and a plate piled high with ham sandwiches sitting untouched before him, as house elves bustled around preparing dinner for a thousand students and staff. 

Newt Scamander looked at him warily. There was no actual rule forbidding students from the kitchen, but it was unusual to find one there. Most students would no more seek the company of house elves than they would old, unfashionable furniture, but Scamander was proving himself different from most students. 

“That was a very noble and well-intentioned act, Mr. Scamander.”

“Setting a jarvey on somebody?” the boy asked confusedly, keeping up his pretense. 

“No, Mr. Scamander. _That_ you did not do.”

If someone had told him at the height of his relationship with Gellert that, for all of the kinship and understanding he thought existed, there was one fundamental difference between them, would he have believed that person? Would it have lifted the fog of love and helped him to see with clearer eyes? 

No, he did not believe it would have. Some lessons had to be learned through personal experience. But Albus tried anyway.

“Loyalty and sacrifice are commendable traits, but we should be certain that those we are loyal to, and would sacrifice for, are deserving.”

The boy looked shocked. Then he puffed up with righteous indignation. “Leta’s not like that! She’s my best friend! She would have done the same for me!”

“Done what, Mr. Scamander?” Albus asked, wanting to hear the boy’s true confession.

But the boy caught himself. “Nothing, professor. I’d better go up to the great hall, there’s probably a Howler from my mum on its way.”

Albus nodded his permission for the boy to leave, but this was not over. He would not let Newt Scamander walk as far down the road to ruin as he had.

~

He could be forgiven sentimentality in his old age, surely. Once he had ascertained that there was no way to break the curse and he’d planned accordingly, Albus took time to say his good-byes. He did not do it in a way so obvious that it would draw the attention of his enemies or the concern of his friends.

If an old man walked down the hill to a pub every evening and ordered a pint from the brother who still did not speak to him, but served him his pint of butterbeer in silence, surely no one would become suspicious. When his pint was half gone, he would make it a point of walking ponderously towards the toilets, the day’s copy of the _Daily Prophet_ tucked under his arm. Albus would activate the locking charm on the door and then Disapparate. 

He had lived a long life and the list of people to whom he wished to bid farewell was very long. He started with the oldest of his acquaintances, surprising those he’d played together with as a child in Mould-on-the-Wold. Then he methodically worked through his school friends, starting with Nicholas Flamel and ending with Elphias Doge. 

The curse had already spread from his finger to turn his whole hand black and withered by the time he Apparated outside the Scamander residence in Dorset. There was no physical sensation to be felt as he rapped sharply on the front door. 

Newt himself answered. “Professor Dumbledore!”

He had lived so long that he was known more as ‘professor’ than ‘Albus’ but that was not something anyone ought to complain about. 

A small pack of kneazles gathered around him and Albus petted each one in turn. 

He enjoyed tea and biscuits with Newt and his wife Tina, and listened attentively as they related the adventures of their grandson Rolf at Ilvermony School of Witchcraft and Wizardy in America. 

“He sounds very much like his grandfather’s grandson,” Albus remarked lightly, while hoping that Rolf Scamander would not encounter a Gellert Grindenwald or Leta Lestrange of his own. 

“Are you alright?” Newt whispered, as he saw Albus to the door hours later. 

“Never better,” Albus replied, and it did not feel like a lie. “I wish you many discoveries of as-of-yet-undiscovered-magical-creatures, my friend.”

“And I - you know, after all of these years, I still don’t know what you would truly want, professor.”

“A pair of warm socks,” Albus said, with a smile. He added, more seriously, “And the knowledge that good wizards and witches will prevail.”

“We will, professor, we will.”


End file.
